


Your Epitaph Will not Contain Your Soul

by TheDefenderoftheFaith



Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, The Flash (Comics), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Barry Allen gets shot, Barry has issues, Friendship, Gen, Hal Has Issues, Hurt Barry Allen, Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, Protective Hal Jordan, people trying to emotion in awful circumstances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25189642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDefenderoftheFaith/pseuds/TheDefenderoftheFaith
Summary: Speedster healing may keep Barry alive, but experiencing it from either side is doing a number on Hal and Barry. Just because everything ends well doesn't mean the trauma disappears - either for Barry, who pulled the bullet out of his own chest, or for Hal, who keeps reliving watching his friend shrug off a brush with death yet again.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Hal Jordan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

“Everyone check in!” Superman’s voice strained over the comms, flaring in the ears of all seven leaguers. 

“I have fared better but I am doing fine, Kal!” Wonder Woman’s voice crackled. Four voices echoed their agreement, before Flash’s voice trickled out into their midst. 

“Same here. I’ll be good. J’onn, are you alright?”

“Of course, Flash. Diana is proving her merit protecting me.”

“Have you figured out how to take care of that inhibitor yet, J’onn?” Green Lantern’s voice was cut off by a grunt, followed by loud clattering. 

“I have not. The nanites in my blood continue to restrain my powers. However-”

Diana’s cut back into the conversation: “However, I am taking good care of him.”

“Hold on, I’ll be back in a minute.” Flash piped back into the conversation before switching off his comm. 

Gasping, he slid back against the wall, trembling as he coughed crimson raindrops. His gaze fell against his chest, the scarlet of his suit drowning and darkening, the lead in his chest sitting like an anvil inching closer to his frantic heart. 

But he hadn’t lied. He’d be fine - he’d done this before. He just had to vibrate his hand in, grab the bullet; get out. Speedster healing would have him back to normal in  _ seconds _ … relative to everyone else. Which was the important part. (A thousand crippling recoveries spent in the silent solitude of relative time flitted through his head, but he pushed them away, determinedly.) 

If he was going to get himself shot, he didn’t have any room to complain about recovering. 

His hand raised in front of him, blurring in it’s speed (everything was blurry, actually, but that wasn’t important either). He braced himself against the rough edge of of the Ran-tauan warship and slipped his arm inside his chest. All he had to do was control every vibration perfectly. His arm at a different rate from the rest of him, while the bullet, wherever it was, remained solid, or at least vibrated at a different rate from both his arm and the rest of himself. 

Simple.

The room jerked and tilted, and everything became less simple and more painful. Flash yanked his arm out of his chest, the jolting ship’s vibrations combined with sparking electrical misfires throwing all his hard work out of synch. He couldn’t possibly… not like this. He couldn’t control himself with the ship bucking all around him, and especially not with the ship’s wrecked electrical system sending jolts of electricity skittering across the metal floors and walls. 

Barry skidded over smooth floors to collide with serrated walls, trying and failing to brace himself. He was thrown head over heels. He  _ couldn’t breathe _ . His lungs flailed, as blood rose inside him in tidal waves, clogging his throat and sending his fingers into frozen claws. 

Again, he tried to curl into himself, anything to stay  _ still _ , but the ship seemed intent on careening wildly, and he was thrown yet again, unable to risk vibrating his arm at all when it would be so easy for it to, wrecked by the wild electrical impulses, end up solid in his chest. 

He landed face down, coughing blood frantically, starved for oxygen, hacking up ruby pearls. He couldn’t breathe. He  _ couldn’t breathe _ . And his mind could race along far faster than his body, could survive and continue while his body was steadily shutting down for want of air, but his metabolism was up, too and it was eating through his oxygen like a starved animal. 

He could feel tears involuntarily burn his eyes as he thrashed helplessly, limbs jerking and flailing of their own accord. He couldn’t pull himself upright, the blood was choking him, it was choking him he needed help he needed…

He hand jolted to his ear, shaking and clumsy, but controlled enough to hit at a button hidden on his right earpiece. 

_ ‘Please be listening, Hal,’ _ Barry pleaded, the thought more a feeling than defined words.  _ ‘I need your help…’ _


	2. Chapter 2

That idiot.  _ ‘Same here’ _ , he says,  _ ‘I’ll be good’ _ , he says. Barry Allen was the biggest idiot on the planet, no, the biggest idiot in all of space sector 2813, and Hal should know because  _ his beat _ was sector 2813! And he knew Barry Allen and… and he should’ve checked in sooner when the self sacrificing idiot of a man turned off his comm. 

Hal narrowed his eyes at the slate of metal between him and the Flash, blasting it apart with his ring as he moved to scan for Barry. He almost choked. 

Barry’s suit blended in famously with the blood coating the room. Hal wasn’t big on fear, but he was not immune to horror, and horror almost stopped his heart for a second before he hovered next to his convulsing best friend, thrashing in cooling blood, more warm waves tossing from Barry’s mouth as he thrashed violently. 

“ _ Barr _ ,” Hal choked out, reaching to steady his friend, yanking his hands back as Barry’s wild vibrations burned his fingers. His emerald sheath enveloped his hands and he reached back out again. “Barr, you gotta talk to me, buddy, you gotta tell me how to help you.”

He levitated Barry from the sparking ground, and tried to prop the man up, which seemed to help, as it allowed him to hack more blood from his mouth and suck in a painful, desperate breath. Which he immediately choked on, doubling over to vomit a pitifully small amount on the floor. Hal pulled Barry back into an upright position, bracing him with a padded cushion of a ring construct, one hand moving to brace the back of the other man’s neck. 

“Breathe, and tell me what you need!” Hal turned his attention to the epicenter of the blood on Barry’s chest. Bullet wound. Definitely. 

Barry gasped, a wet, clattering sound, and panted out a breathy: “ _ Still _ .”

“What?”

“ _ Still _ . Keep.” Barry devolved into spluttering as the ship shuddered around them, but Hal had understood. 

“So you can grab it! Right! Keep you still. Right…” 

Hal clamped emerald restraints around Barry’s shoulders, abdomen and legs, making sure to keep them steady as a rock. “This good?”

Barry’s head flopped in rapid ascent, and his hand struggled to make the trek to his chest. Hal’s brows furrowed, as he wanted nothing more than to help push things along, but any variable interference could wreck Barry’s ability to save himself, and with Martian Manhunter down… this was Barry’s only chance to survive. 

Hal bit down on his lip. He loved his ring, but so often it also served to separate him from the people he was saving. As much as he loved actually  _ using  _ his hands, it was rare that he had the opportunity to make real  _ contact _ with anyone as Green Lantern, always relying on constructs. 

Well, times like this, where he couldn’t shift his construct and couldn’t lay a hand on his chalk-white and shaking best friend, were when he really felt the separation his powers afforded. 

His hands clenched at his knees as he hovered in tense vigil over Barry, who didn’t seem to have found anything yet. 

But it must have been so long for the Speedster, who must be experiencing this in relative time… if Barry had spent so long searching when he was already so weak, so exhausted… 

Hal ducked his head and looked back to his friend, who was still spluttering up blood and gasping for every breath. Hal cursed his not thinking to provide Barry with a respirator sooner: now it would only distract him, then flicked his gaze to his thrumming ring. 

“Ring, how are Flash’s vital signs?”

The ring flickered and gave him a terrifying display of the state of Flash’s stuttering heart. And with oxygen intake like that? Could there be brain damage? 

Flash suddenly went limp, arms and head dropping without warning or restraint. There was a muted clatter of wet metal as the bullet hit the floor, and Hal let his restraints drop, shifting Flash against Hal where he could  _ personally  _ check his pulse, (no offense ring, but some habits never die) and try to rub some life back into Flash’s deadened limbs. 

He also plastered a bandage on top of the chest wound, although hopefully, now that Flash wasn’t wounded  _ and _ trying to carry out complex vibrational patterns, that would take care of itself in short order. 

Barry was a blur in Hal’s arms, slumped against the Green Lantern’s chest but lost to relative time, shaking and trembling still, before the movement slowed, then stopped. 

Barry’s head dragged itself up, blue eyes clouded with pain trying to find Hal’s through the impenetrable mask. Hal let the thing dissolve, giving Barry a relieved beam of a smile. 

“Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he managed, quirking his brow at his best friend, who’s eyes crinkled in response in that ridiculously endearing way of his, before the man started to push himself off Hal’s chest. 

“Woah, woah, woah, where do you think  _ you’re  _ going?” Hal accused, yanking Barry back down to his level. 

“I’m doing better now. Really: speedster healing.”

And Barry looked at him, so earnest and selfless that it made Hal want to bash his own brains out against the wall. It would match Barry’s congealing blood rather nicely, he thought. 

“You just… did you see yourself: just now?” Hal already knew this was a losing battle, but he couldn’t help stalling Barry for these few precious moments the man could use to give his healing some more time to stitch himself back together before it was back to the invasion. Everyone else would be fine. There was no reason for Barry to rush out just yet.

“GL, I’m doing better really.” 

Barry staggered to his feet, straightening and pulling himself to his full height, flashing that patented, reassuring, everything-will-be-alright Flash smile at Hal like barely a minute ago he hadn’t barely had the strength to convulse. 

“I know, GL. Thanks for helping me out, but I’m doing way better already. I’ve done this before: was up in seconds.”

Hal’s heart settled back into it’s normal rhythm, and he pushed the rest of his unsettled emotions to the back of his mind. Barry was up. They still had a mission. He’d watch the guy’s back, and they’d both be fine. 

“Sure, sure.” Hal pulled himself to his feet, crossing his arms over his chest. “But we’re tag teaming the rest of this mission, capeesh?”

Flash grinned and nodded, pumping his legs to warm them up and crouched, glancing at Hal to ensure the Green Lantern was ready to follow. 

A mask solidified over Hal’s face, and, rolling his shoulders, holding on to those last few seconds, he hovered off the ground, and gave a nod. 


	3. Chapter 3

Green Lantern’s hand caught Flash’s shoulder as the man turned to change back into Barry Allen. “Flash, are you sure you’re alright?”

Barry rolled his eyes and huffed. “ _ Fine _ . Really. It’s been hours, I’ve had plenty of time to heal.” Flash blurred into a whirlwind, leaving a tousle-haired Barry in his wake. “You’re such a mother hen.”

Hal spluttered, sparking his ring into reverting him to civvies. “Oh, I’m a mother hen? I watch my best friend convulse and choke on his own blood and vibrate his  _ hand _ into his  _ chest _ while I just sit there and  _ hold still _ , and when I don’t accept after  _ literal seconds _ that you’re fine, that’s being a mother hen? Barry, I think I’m entitled to worry about you!”

Barry dropped his face into his hand, and huffed, shoulders rising and dropping. “Right. Of course. I’m sure that must be… hard. Do you want…” He waved his hands a little helplessly. “Do you want to come in?” 

Hal firmly stated his assent, and the two made their way down the street to Barry’s apartment. 

Barry turned the key and pushed the door open, still slightly put out. “I know, I  _ know _ it must have seemed… abrupt? To you. But,  _ really _ , you… understand that I had more than enough time to heal, right?”

Hal turned his face away, devoting his energy to hanging his jacket just-so and throwing his other miscellaneous carry-ons onto Barry’s coffee table. 

He blinked, fighting back the memory of blood overtaking the white of his gloves, his friend seizing in front of him, choking and begging Hal with his eyes to just  _ help _ him. And the near instantaneous transition to Flash up and fighting again. 

“Does it happen often?”

Barry frowned in confusion. “What?”

“You couldn’t fix yourself because… the ship was messing with you. But do you get shot a lot? Do you have to…” Hal left a sweep of his hand to encompass everything that had happened in the bloodstained room. 

Barry sighed, and moved to lean against the back of the couch, forcing Hal to turn to face him. “I mean. That  _ bad  _ was pretty… extraordinary. And I don’t usually get shot. What I can’t catch, I can phase through, right?”

“What happens when you… break a leg or something? I mean, people stab you in the legs all the time. Cheetah cut your tendons, and people stomp your leg in two a lot. What happens then?”

Barry blinked, like he couldn’t quite figure Hal out. “I heal.”

“Yeah, but… you said that what I saw as about a minute was… longer, for you. Do you just… stay in relative time for as long as it takes you to heal?”

Barry’s eyes flickered, and Hal could almost swear he was trying to get out of something. He looked… guilty, Hal would put good money on it. Or he would, if he had any. 

“Barr?”

“Hal, right, I just… always experience time differently as the Flash. Speed healing is an extension of that.”

“An injury like that would take weeks, at least, to heal enough for you to run around playing hero, and that’s being  _ very _ generous. You  _ can’t  _ have… is it weeks for you?”

“No, I…” Barry shifted, uncomfortable, but Hal wasn’t going to let him squirm out of this one. “We call me fast, but really I’m bending the space-time continuum in ways we don’t understand yet. You’ve seen me run around the planet, right? That would take  _ hundreds _ of days in real-time. But it doesn’t seem that long to me.”

Hal nodded. “So, how long does it take?”

Barry’s face screwed up as he avoided eye contact, grasping the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Honestly, after being the Flash for so long, my sense of time is… off. It wasn’t great before, but now… I really couldn’t tell you.”

“That’s why you’re always late?”

“Maybe? It can just be so hard to tell the difference between real time and relative time, and keeping  _ track _ …” Barry seemed to catch himself, and trailed off awkwardly. “Yeah.”

“So guess. Ballpark it.”

Barry threw up his hands and pushed off his couch. “I don’t  _ know _ . I really can’t tell you. Hal, thank you for your concern, but there’s nothing  _ important _ here.”

“Let’s put it a different way. You break your leg in the middle of a battle. How much paperwork could you get through in that amount of time?”

Barry considered the ceiling as he muled that over, before putting his hand up to the level of his head and moving it over 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… 7 times. 

Hal’s jaw dropped. “ _ Barr _ …”

“I’m good at paperwork.”

“Barry,  _ no _ . No, you… you said you can’t interact with us in relative time, right? We’re too slow.”

Barry turned away, dragging his hand over his face. “Hal, please just drop it.”

“No, I’m right, aren’t I? You get hurt and you speed heal, and it’s just seconds for us, but for you… you’re alone.”

Barry sighed. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’d be insane if I really spent years by myself in relative time, there’s a part of my mind that automatically dissociates…” 

“Don’t tell me it isn’t-” Hal trailed off. 

Barry glanced up, locking him in the eyes. “Isn’t what?”

Hal’s lips pursed. Lonely. He didn’t want to say it, to put it out there. This wasn’t something he and Barry did. Sure, they were always there for each other, but most of what they did was… fun. Psychological therapy had little place in their dynamic. But, he wasn’t one to back down from anything. 

“Lonely, Barry.”

Barry sighed, and let his shoulders droop empathetically. “Part of having abilities is being lonely, Hal. You know that. How much time have you spent alone in space? How many months have you gone without touching another human being? Everyone has their own problems.”

Well, Barry  _ would _ remember that. Hal might have once vented about how much he missed actual human contact as part of a long-drawn-out drunken mistake. 

“I mean… you can just talk to me, right? Might… help? I could be there?”

“Hal, I don’t want to.” Barry’s posture grew defensive as he drew his arms up to his chest, before pushing them back down to his sides. “I know you’re trying to help, but I don’t need it. I’m  _ fine _ , I appreciate what you’re trying to do but you don’t need to trouble yourself-”

“Barry we’re  _ friends. _ Friends trouble themselves: that’s what they do. Why can’t you just a _ ccept _ that?”

“I don’t  _ need _ anything, Hal! So there’s no reason for you-”

“Friends aren’t reserved for when you  _ need _ them, Barry. You’re allowed to  _ trouble _ me without the world coming to an end!”

Barry collapsed into a seat, drawing a hand over his face and keeping it there. “Hal… I don’t want to… to be a  _ bother _ . I know you want me to… reach out but… I just wasn’t  _ raised _ that way. You don’t go ask people for favors you don’t need when it’ll worry them or…” Barry’s head raised up again as a hand brushed in a semicircle toward and away from Hal. 

“It’s not the way things are supposed to be done.”

Hal crossed the room to crouch in front of Barry. “But maybe things would be better. I  _ want _ to help you. Part of being friends is helping each other even if they don’t need it, and Barr, I think you might need it more than you want to admit. You haven’t talked with anyone about this, have you?”

Barry’s uncomfortable shifting spoke for itself, and Hal nodded. “I figured.”

“But, Hal, there’s nothing you can do. I can’t always avoid being hurt, and I’d cripple the team if I tried. Things just happen-”

“Well, maybe we could… make more of the normal time you do have.  _ Do _ stuff together more often.”

Barry glanced up, still hunched, before turning his face away again.

“Hal, I don’t know...” 

“What, do you not want to hang out with me?” Hal raised an eyebrow at Barry, who shook his head in exasperation as a smile twitched his lips. “Plus, we just talked about how I need to hang out with my species some more. I think you’re a great specimen of an earthman!”

“No… no, I’d… like that. If it wasn’t a bother to you.” Barry finally made eye contact, giving Hal a small, real smile. 

“I think I’d like that a lot.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Barry, duck!”

Flash flickered a glance toward Green Lantern, then dropped under the shrieking bullet one of Brainiac’s minions had launched at his head.

Hal’s ring flared before pulverizing the offending robot into powder. His eye slits narrowed, and he surrounded Flash in a protective dome, before exploding it outwards, sending machine after machine crumbling into spare parts. 

Flash moved toward the Lantern, but Hal shot into the air to engage a squadron of dive-bombing minions. 

Suddenly, before he could begin to blast them, they jerked backward, shrapnel protruding from their heads and chests. Hal tracked their descent to Earth, following their trajectory to Flash, who stood staring up at his friend. 

Hal simply looked away, and rushed to slice apart some more minions getting too close for comfort. 

* * *

“Hal, would you like to talk about what happened back there?”

“What’s to talk about?” Hal flashed a devil-may-care grin at Flash, already hovering off the ground. “You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

“No: aside from being able to take care of myself, I seemed to have my own personal bodyguard. And an enthusiastic one, at that.” Barry’s eyebrow went up, and the unspoken demand came in loud and clear.

“I was just watching your back. We do that, right?”

“Right, but… Hal, I was fine. I was aware of my surroundings, I was going to duck-”   
  


“You might not have.”

“Okay, but after  _ that, _ I was definitely fine. You didn’t need to focus so hard on clearing  _ my _ opponents for me.”

Barry’s glare intensified, and Hal let his ring cut out, dropping him back to the ground. 

“I’m sorry, alright? My bad! I just…” Hal folded his arms over his chest and tightened his lips. “I just saw him trying to  _ shoot  _ you and I… wasn’t going to let him do it. Him, or anyone else, for that matter.”

Barry reached back out to Hal, but the Green Lantern took a step back. “I’ll keep an eye on it,” he promised, lips twitching in what might have been an internal battle on the merits of pretending to smile. “You can take care of yourself, and I have my own work to do.” 

Now the smile was back, and Hal threw up his fingers in mock salute. “Take care, Flasher!”

Barry sighed imperceptibly at the green streak making its way to parts unknown, and turned to help clean the decimated streets.

* * *

“ _ Oh _ , Barry, what a… surprise. Hey, pal!”

Barry, wearing, perhaps, the most unimpressed face Hal had ever seen on a human being since his last girlfriend, graced Hal with a quirking smile and swept his hand out to display to Hal the state of his own living room.

“Hal. Honestly, I don’t see how anyone who owns as  _ little _ as you do can possibly be so messy.”

“ _ What _ , I’m special!” Hal grinned and shrugged out of his jacket. “So, how are… um, the Central City Cougars?”

“Hal… you aren’t getting out of this conversation by asking ‘ _ how ‘bout them Bears? _ ’.’”

“Wha? Who’s trying to get out of anything?” Hal strolled over to his couch, flopping down in a lavish display of bad posture. “I just thought we were still in the small talk part of the conversation. Didn’t realize we were moving on already.”

“Hal…” Barry moved to take the opposite side of the couch, leaning forward intently. Hal remained slouched backward. “You aren’t okay.”

“Well, that should really go without saying.”

“I didn’t take your reaction to my… predicament in the Ran-tauan invasion seriously enough. And I’m sorry. It’s still affecting you, Hal.”

“I’m doing better, though!” Hal held up a finger authoritatively. “You gotta give me that.”

Barry shook his head, looking back up at Hal sadly. “I don’t want you to just ignore your problems, I want things to get  _ better _ . What’s… what’s going on with you?”

“I’m-” Hal cut himself off at the expression on Barry’s face, crossing his arms and turning his face to inspect the wall over the couch’s back. “You’re gonna keep crashing my pad until we do this, huh?”

Hal’s glance to Barry’s face was met with silence, so he glanced away again, huffing at his overly-persistent friend.

“I just can’t seem to get over it, alright? It’s dumb, I’ve been through  _ way _ worse, and… this is just… sticking. I just… I  _ knew _ something was wrong: you activated your distress signal, for crying out loud! I just… wasn’t expecting it to be that bad, and then I was in full emergency mode and… and then boom, you’re fine, we’re fine, crisis over, nothing to see here!”

At some point in his tirade, Hal had straightened a little and taken to dramatic gesticulations to emphasize his points. He seemed to come back to himself a bit, falling back against the threadbare cloth of the couch. 

“I don’t know what I’m looking for. You’re  _ fine _ , what else am I supposed to  _ need _ ? Should I want you to be  _ not _ -fine?” Hal groaned, and slumped again. 

“And when you saw me getting shot at…”

“I couldn’t let it happen again.” Hal’s head thumped against the armrest, brown eyes searching the ceiling for the right words to explain himself.

“You aren’t  _ invincible _ , you know, you idiot.”

Barry’s eyebrow went right up at Hal’s declaration. 

“I mean, it kinda seems like it. Like, anything can happen to you, but you’ll just… walk it off. Run it off. No harm, no foul. I mean, it’s really the easiest way to think about you: you can get hurt but nothing sticks, it’s not… dangerous. And then you went and got  _ shot _ and turned into just a… a  _ water fountain _ of  _ blood _ , and, let me tell  _ you _ , buddy, that you were very much not fine.” Hal leveled an accusing finger at Barry, who recoiled uncomfortably.

“So what was I supposed to think then, huh? I go from ‘ _ Oh, Flash can get hurt all he wants, he’ll make it out okay’  _ to  _ ‘whelp never mind, gotta think of this as life or death and also my gloves are red now’ _ to  _ ‘aaand we’re back to beating the life outta everyone and their second cousin no harm no foul let’s forget about this’ _ and I feel like I have whiplash!”

Hal blinked at the ceiling and gulped. “You weren’t fine. But then you were and I didn’t quite… get that transition, I guess. And I can’t just convince myself that you were always fine because…” Hal choked. “I still think my gloves are red, sometimes. And I can’t get scared. I can’t let myself see something red streak by and then just  _ freeze up _ and start looking for you because… my ring wouldn’t work.”

Hal shifted his gaze to Barry’s concerned face. “I can’t unsee my best friend almost dying, but I can’t be scared. Ever.” He shifted upward a little, gaze intent. “Usually it’s easy. I just don’t think about whatever bad stuff could happen, and I focus on getting the job done. After the fight, it’s out of sight, out of mind, but Barr…” Hal’s voice trailed off and he sat a little straighter. 

“Barr, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not a psychopath, or a sociopath or whatever. I care about people, I just don’t get scared because… I can prioritize. Choose to think about something helpful instead, but now  _ you _ and the  _ bullet _ are stuck in my  _ head _ and…” Hal’s voice dropped off to a whisper. 

“And if I choose to think about it and process what happened I’m…” Hal choked again, and his eyes shimmered suspiciously. “I’m going to be  _ afraid _ .”

Barry leaned forward, hand reaching out to Hal’s knee, but the Lantern continued. “Maybe not for long, maybe I’ll work it out, but for a while I  _ know  _ I’ll be afraid but I’m not… allowed to be.”

Hal completely straightened, looking Barry in the eyes. “What happens, Barr? If I Iet myself be afraid just this once… will it happen again? Am I gonna lose the ability to not get scared? If I don’t, will I ever be able to fight the same? I don’t get scared, and I have the willpower to stick anything out… you can’t imagine how much discipline it takes to know which battles to fight, and when to retreat.

If I open up to fear outside a fight, maybe I’ll start getting scared  _ in _ one. If I  _ don’t _ , then I could throw off my entire balance! Maybe I can’t repress it completely, maybe I overanalyze if I’m leaving you alone to prove I’m  _ not _ scared but really you need help and I get you killed! Maybe I overcompensate the other way. I don’t…” Hal’s gaze burned into Barry’s imploringly. 

“I don’t know how to deal with this.”

Barry scooted closer to rest a hand on Hal’s shoulder. “I wasn’t fine. I was going to die. I was going to bleed out, or have a heart attack, or that bullet was going to rupture my heart. But then you came in, and everything was still terrible, but you held me still long enough for me to get the bullet out of my chest. Then I took some time to heal, and I recovered. And now I’m okay.” Barry gave Hal a reassuring smile. 

“We’ve got three more Green Lanterns to guard this planet, you can take a minute if you need one.”

Hal choked a laugh, bending over to push his forehead against his hand, but he still considered Barry out of the corner of his eye. “That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

Barry nodded. “Happily ever after.” Another smile, and Barry’s calm blue eyes, as reassuring and steady as they’d been for years and years, steadied Hal in the lightheaded, open rush of safety after a battle. The fight was over. Barry hadn’t been fine. Barry was fine now. 

Earth was protected by three Green Lanterns and an army of superheroes. Barry was right… if he had one off day… Earth would survive, wouldn’t it? He could be less-than-okay for a little while.

“You know what?” Hal turned and straightened to smile at his best friend. “I think I can work with that. Happily ever after. Until next time… happily ever after.”


End file.
